New video card or something else

hobo1137

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Jul 26, 2015
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Hello. Longtime reader for over 10 years but I am finally posting. My GTX 670 is starting to struggle in newer games and games I mod with texture packs/ENB. My wife has always been okay with me upgrading my PC components every three to five years as she wants me to keep hobbies in married life with kids.

My dilemma is I want to definitely get Pascal so it might be difficult to justify buying a 970/980 now and then Pascal next year. I need something to hold me over while TRYING to stay in the $150 to $250 range. I run an i5-2500k, 8GB RAM, 830 SSD and I think I am okay with those for now.

I was thinking of trying to find a used 970 but don’t know if they go for that low used. Should I just play some older games I have in my backlog and wait for Pascal to play the newer stuff? Any other suggestions? Thanks!
 
IMO go for a used 970 , or wait for Pascal with what you've got.The problem is we don't know when Pascal is going to hit.
 
The age old question in computers, should I wait since something new is coming? Well something new is always coming though sometimes slower than expected. Gratification now is better in IMHO. Of course if you have a lot of older games to catch up on and enjoy them than waiting 6 to 16 months may be fine.
 
150-250 range after you sell the 670? i doubt the pascal XX70 version will be under 300 dollars. It is using brand new memory and GPU. Those aren't cheap things to manufacture in a video card and with amd falling behind they have no reason to price something much faster than current gen cards lower than ever before. if you get the pascal low end XX60 new later than it might not be all that much faster than getting a 970 used right now. If you can sell the 670 at a good price it might help stretch you to 280 or so dollars for a used 970. Then later you can sell the 970 for a used pascal if you like. Difficult to say because we don't know pascal pricing nor how much faster they will be compared to maxwell. Also don't know if amd will come out with something around that time as well and when it will come out. No one knows anything concrete about them so it is probably best to buy something now selling the old 670 for a relatively cheap upgrade and figure out what you want to do when pascal actually releases. IMHO unless you are dirt poor no reason to rack your brain over this especially if you can sell the old graphic cards to recoup some of the money.
 
One other thought, Pascal will the newest and greatest i.e. bleeding edge, if you prefer to wait until the bugs are all worked out then your time frame stretches even farther. The generation after Pascal (or maybe AMD will have something really good by then) is what I'll be looking at next (I don't mind bleeding edge too much though, I started with a TRS-80 ;) ).
 
Why not get a second 670? They go for $100 and less nowadays. The performance should be about the same as 970. Less memory, but that's not really an issue unless you go 4k.
 
Hello. Longtime reader for over 10 years but I am finally posting. My GTX 670 is starting to struggle in newer games and games I mod with texture packs/ENB. My wife has always been okay with me upgrading my PC components every three to five years as she wants me to keep hobbies in married life with kids.

My dilemma is I want to definitely get Pascal so it might be difficult to justify buying a 970/980 now and then Pascal next year. I need something to hold me over while TRYING to stay in the $150 to $250 range. I run an i5-2500k, 8GB RAM, 830 SSD and I think I am okay with those for now.

I was thinking of trying to find a used 970 but don’t know if they go for that low used. Should I just play some older games I have in my backlog and wait for Pascal to play the newer stuff? Any other suggestions? Thanks!

I'd say with what you have, save up for another year. The 970 will still struggle with some newer games.

Start to use more performance settings in your ENB and you should be fine for another year.
 
Why not get a second 670? They go for $100 and less nowadays. The performance should be about the same as 970. Less memory, but that's not really an issue unless you go 4k.

Surprisingly, 670s are still going for around $100 while used 970s can be found for around $200 used. With that in mind, I'd sell the 670 and buy a 970 vs. 670 SLI for roughly the same price.
 
Why not get a second 670? They go for $100 and less nowadays. The performance should be about the same as 970. Less memory, but that's not really an issue unless you go 4k.

He plays games w/ extra texture packets. 2GB will be holding him back a bit. Like another said, sell the 670 and use it toward a 970. The 970 will probably hold you over for a good while. Im interested in Pascal myself, but Im going to sit tight on the 1st gen release of the line-up and wait for 2nd series.
 
You guys are awesome. Thanks for the responses. In my single days, I would have already bought a new 970/980 and then planned to get Pascal on day one. If I shell out $250 now for a used 970 and then $500/600 for Pascal next year, my wife will question why I just did not wait. I think I am going to have to determine if this is acceptable. I think $$$ is the number one thing married people fight about.

Then again, I don't complain about all the stupid crap she buys every year... ;)
 
Seriously, why does she get to dictate what you spend your hobby money on? Does she get your approval before she buys things for herself?
 
Just stash money or skimp on a meal here and there and just fudge numbers and say you sold it for more and bought used one for less than the actual number. She wont be on your case if it isnt thst much difference
 
seems like someone is single :D:D

This...though sometimes I use the buy now, apologize later strategy, only refreshes once a year or so, maybe worth saving.


In any case, get the 970...to me this is a clear cut answer. Period. Done. Everything struggles with some new games, and you can always wait.

Let us know.
 
Be man a buy a f@cking used 970! :mad:

And sell the 970 back (at a loss equivalent to one month of tampons) next year when Pascal is out.
 
GTX 970, if you're on Nvidia, is the only thing worth upgrading to. Otherwise you'll have to spend more. 670 to 970 was a big jump though, and it helps a lot in newer games.
 
Sell your 670, buy used 970 then if you still want to upgrade to Pascal next year you can sell the 970 and use those funds for Pascal :cool:. The [H] FS/T forum has always been great when it comes time for upgrades.
 
Whenever I upgrade, I have to factor the price of a woman's bag and shoes. Which of course end up being more expensive than whatever I get :D:D
 
This...though sometimes I use the buy now, apologize later strategy, only refreshes once a year or so, maybe worth saving.


In any case, get the 970...to me this is a clear cut answer. Period. Done. Everything struggles with some new games, and you can always wait.

Let us know.

Do what I do - buy her flowers / chocolates / <insert w/e clichéd item in here you want> in advance, (and not by a few days but a few weeks) for "no reason". At first she'll get a bit suspicious / concerned but eventually she'll get past that part and just take it as a nice gesture. THEN you go and spend money and tell her you were banking with that gift (icing on the cake is to buy a second round of <insert clichéd item> when you bring home the PC part to either make up for it or bank for the next time). Don't ask me why, I really can't explain it but this method works 100% for me (I honestly think that's quite rare in being able to work too :p).

On a more serious note - you might be able to find used 970's or even better 980's on hard forum's for sale board, or if you're lucky, elsewhere. It's definitely been stated above that you can wait and wait and wait for the next best thing, but there will always be a better thing. Pascal's getting a lot of hype, but we've seen this before and not just with the graphics industry. It could be amazingly better, or it could be an incremental update (unlikely with new hardware stuff in the card), it'll definitely land somewhere in-between. If you're really itching for something, you'll have to justify the repeat upgrades - otherwise, based on prior generation iterations, we can safely expect Pascal to land in 2H of 2016 at the latest (watch me be wrong about this a year and a half from now)! The real question is can you wait for around another year for Pascal to drop?
 
All great answers. I am going to buy a 970 (maybe new if on sale/rebate for $299 I have seen in the past) and blame everything on you guys. I'll use a combination of your suggestions (butter her up, buy now, apologize later, compare my purchase to all of hers, rationalize my hobby to her) and then I cannot fail. I never treat myself so screw it. Thanks all!

And to the "be a man" comment, hey, you have to pick your battles. I will represent for you if it gets nasty. ;)
 
Well, I told my wife I was going to upgrade my PC over the next few months to a year and she did not even care. :) I picked up a new Asus Strix 970 for $289.71 after the deals. I would post this in the Hot Deals section as a good deal but my noobie status will not allow it. If anyone wants to copy it over there, here is what I did:

I read this post: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041770946&postcount=14

Asus Strix 970 was $355.71
20% off code plus tax to CA made it $309.71 (maybe no tax in other states)
Asus is offering a $20 mail in rebate in August: http://www.mirhelp.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ASUS-VGA-August-Mail-In-Rebate-ASU-13101-US.pdf
Free shipping. Says it will be here on Thursday

*Edit - I called to see if they could price match Amazon on the original price. They gave me a bunch of static and said "warehouse item" and then "third party vendor item" but I pointed out that was not stated on their product page. They said they would apply the $16 adjustment to my credit card so if that actually works this whole thing comes out to ~ $273 in the end.
 
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Very nice man!


Really, I expect the GTX 970 to have legs for a long time. It's the best "value" high-end card we've seen since the "$269 launch price - yeah right" HD 5850 and the "Overclocks by 25% without touching the voltage " superstar GTX 460 days :)

Pascal is going to be an expensive new chip design on an unproven 14nm process nose with expensive new HBM2 memory, so expect the usal $400+ launch prices for the 1070 and 1080 top-end. The mid-range should follow within six months.

We'll have to wait and see if Nvidia sticks with GDDR5 on their midrange offerings, because if theye do you'll probably see similar performance to the GTX 970. This is why I think buying Maxwell on clearance is a smart move. You'll get at least an extra year out of the card if you buy today!
 
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